A CAR crash which led to the amputation of a man’s lower leg was an accident, said three men accused of a brutal murder attempt.

Three men told police they were in the Skoda Octavia taxi which hit, pinned and crushed 46-year-old Kevin Harland, pictured.

Driver Brian Letchford, 36, said he lost control of the car and denied deliberately driving at the ex-boxer, intending to strike him and trying to kill him in the early hours of July 4 last year.

“Not a chance,” he told officers in interviews read to a Teesside Crown Court jury yesterday. “It was an accident.”

The cabbie said he saw Mr Harland standing “shouting” on Leighton Road, Grangetown.

“Then someone came from the other side and near enough tried to attack me with an axe.

“For that split second I don’t know what happened. All I could see was a f***ing axe coming towards my head. I seriously was scared. I tried to swerve. I hit the kerb. The car just kept going. My foot was on the accelerator. I hit the wall. I came to a sudden stop. I hit the windscreen.”

He said he panicked, reversed off and didn’t realise he had hit Mr Harland until hours later.

Letchford said there had been some “argy-bargy” 20 minutes earlier at his friend Kevin Dawson’s home.

He said Mr Harland, whom he’d never met before, turned up with an axe and threatened to cut his stepbrother Mark Daniels’ head off, then left.

Letchford said he and Dawson got into the car then picked up Daniels’ brother Andrew.

He said he had no dispute with Mr Harland but “wasn’t going to let a brother get killed”.

Dawson, 33, said Mr Harland shouted and told him to get Mark Daniels so he could fight.

He quoted Mr Harland as saying: “Tell him ‘prepare to die, because I am’.”

He said the trio went out in the car to “sort this out” and Mr Harland appeared wielding a weapon.

“Brian’s lost control and hit him. He lost control and skidded. He’s pinned him up against the gate. I think he was laid on the bonnet. I didn’t know he was trapped. I didn’t know what to think.”

Andrew Daniels, 34, said no one intended to harm anyone and they set out to “talk some sense” into Mr Harland. “There was no attempt to run anyone over at all,” he said.

“I feel sorry for what’s happened to him. But that man had an axe in his hand and was attacking people.”

A fourth defendant Mark Daniels, 32, denied being there or seeing Mr Harland that night.

He said: “I’ve got no involvement whatsoever in assaulting Kevin Harland and was not there when he got injured.” He added: “I’m a person who sits on my arse and gets stoned constantly. I’m a thief, not a fighter. I’m a lazy b*****.”

Letchford and Dawson, both of Lanchester Road, and the Daniels brothers, both of Bolckow Road, all from Grangetown, deny attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm with intent.